


Flashfics

by ivorygates



Category: Stargate SG-1
Genre: Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-12
Updated: 2019-02-12
Packaged: 2019-10-26 14:37:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 11
Words: 7,211
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17747732
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ivorygates/pseuds/ivorygates
Summary: Flashfics.  Some gen, some slash, some crack.





	1. PROMPT: Daniel. Being surprisingly dangerous for a linguist. (gen)

**Author's Note:**

> One evening a thousand years ago (around 2009), I and my Usual Co-Conspirator were bored, so we solicited a bunch of prompts (capped at ten? twelve?) and then (separately) wrote the ones we claimed out of the set the same night. These are mine. Some are slash, many are gen. The original prompt functions as the chapter title. (I posted this as a chaptered work since that seemed most logical to me.)
> 
> The chapters are wholly-unrelated to one another. My embryonic headcanon, let me show it you.
> 
> I am pretty sure I haven't already posted these here. Let me know if I have.
> 
> PS: I don't know who prompted most of these any more. If it was you, feel free to claim it.

When they'd come down the steps of the Gate, the procession had been walking up the road toward them and Jack had grinned at him and said, "You're on." So Daniel had walked up to them—with Jack and the other two right behind, of course, since Jack is firmly convinced that even _trees_ are a threat—and begun the process of seeing what languages they might have in common. Sometimes it's even English, and that drives Daniel crazy, because he has _no idea why._ (Jack says it's because they get Expanded Cable. Jack doesn't take Daniel's job seriously—but then, Jack thinks you serve 'linguistics' with marinara sauce.)

The next thing he really remembers is lying on his face on the ground, and he doesn't know how he got there. His face is bloody and his glasses are missing, but he always carries a spare pair since Abydos, and he puts them on. The world snaps into focus. Jack and Sam and Teal'c are gone. He staggers back to the steps of the Stargate and sits down. His head really hurts, and he's dizzy. After a few minutes the dizziness passes. He gets up and looks around. No sign of them. No sign (thank god) of their bodies.

And he knows he ought to turn around _right now_ and dial home and let somebody else take care of this, but ... he's only been on the team a few months, and if he does that, maybe General Hammond will say he was right in the first place, and Daniel doesn't belong out here looking for Sha're. Besides...

They hit him. And Jack and the others would have fought back then, and Daniel knows how well Jack fights, and Teal'c is a _Jaffa Warrior_ , and they were taken prisoner (please, god, let them have been taken prisoner) and taken away. But nobody bothered with him. He wasn't important enough to bother with, and the more he thinks about that, the angrier Daniel gets, because _all his life_ he hasn't been important enough to bother with. Not important enough for Nick to want. Not important enough for Ra to kill, and between those two events lies a whole continuum of _not being important enough._

It ends here. It ends now.

#

"Come on," Daniel says, opening the door of the cell where the other three are being held. Jack is bruised and furious, Sam looks okay. "Ah," he says, seeing that Teal'c is chained to the wall. "Just a minute." He hunts through the ring of keys in his hand until he finds one that looks like it will fit. He needs to do it out here in the hall; the light's better. It's night—late at night; he doesn't know how long the dark will last, but the sun set about seven hours ago by his watch.

"Where's the cavalry, Daniel?" Jack asks in a low voice.

"Just me," Daniel says. He finds a key that he thinks will work and enters the cell. It's really dark in here, and he tripped and broke his flashlight out in the woods so he doesn't have it now. Sam helps Jack to his feet. He can't stand without help.  
"Where are our hosts?" Jack asks.

Daniel shoves the key into the lock. It twists and sticks, and Teal'c has to help him turn it. But the locks turn, one after the other, and Teal'c stands free.

"Sleeping," Daniel says. "I mean, I hope they're sleeping. I couldn't regulate the dose—I had to put it in the beer to disguise the taste and make sure they'd drink it—everyone drinks beer here; that's fairly common in preindustrial societies, actually, so—"

"Daniel," Jack says, with knife-edged patience. "What did you do?"

Daniel smiles tightly as Sam and Teal'c help Jack limp out of the cell. It will be a long cold walk back to the Stargate, but nobody will be chasing them. "I followed the road to the village and heard them talking about killing all of you in the morning. I knew I couldn't just charge in and rescue you—I'm the guy they didn't think was worth bothering to take along, you know? But along the way I'd seen some plants I thought I recognized, so I circled back for a closer look. They looked enough like _datura stramonium_ for me to take the chance that they'd act the same way. I collected a bunch and dosed the communal beer vat. Half the villagers ran off into the forest and the other half started staggering around and passing out, and I knew I was right. Then it was only a matter of waiting until everyone was out of the way and coming and getting you out."

"'Datura...?'" Jack says. They're outside the village now, their progress slow but steady.

"You probably know it as 'jimson weed,' sir," Sam says helpfully. "Or 'loco weed.'"

Daniel sees Jack make a sour face. "Isn't that stuff kind of, I don't know, poisonous, Daniel?" he says after a few moments.

Daniel sighs. "It depends on the dose." He thinks—he hopes—that everybody in the village will just wake up in the morning with a bad hangover. But the dose that causes noticeable effects and the dose that kills are very near to each other.

He's a little worried by how little worried by this he is.

_Sha're. I'm doing this for you..._

###


	2. PROMPT: "It can't end THAT way!" (gen; slash if you squint)

"It can't end _that_ way!" Mitchell says.

"Come on," Daniel says. He's too tired to argue. If he weren't, he'd tell Mitchell that _yes, it can._ Every time they breathe, they inhale the molecules of shattered empires; they walk through the dust of kings and crowns blown into the upper atmosphere to sift down again or fall with the rain. The _Goa'uld_ Empire spanned the galaxy for twenty five millennia before the _Tau'ri_ humbled it in the stardust; the Ori ruled their own slave empire since before the Ancients kick-started Evolution all over again here, if he read the Avalon Codex correctly. And now the Ori are gone, too. Everything dies. Everything ends.

"But ... why?" Cam asks.

Sometimes Cameron Mitchell makes Daniel feel as if he, too, is thousands of years old. Because Mitchell still wants to know 'why', and Daniel's given up asking that question long ago. But if he doesn't give Mitchell an answer, Mitchell will go on standing here forever, and Daniel wants to get moving. "Because they wanted to. Because they could. Because they hate us. Pick one. Come on."

He walks off, shrugging his pack more comfortably into place on his back, and because he does, Mitchell follows. It is very quiet as they walk down NORAD Road away from the Mountain.

Daniel remembers the trip to Atlantis. He remembers confronting Ganos Lal, begging her, begging the Ancients, to enter the fight against the Ori. Remembers her refusal, and how they'd fought on alone—Earth, the galaxy—how they'd sent the Sangraal off to Alterra and seen that forlorn hope fail, because Adria had Ascended and was heir to all the power the Ori could claim. She'd marshaled her armies and led them toward Earth.

And the Ascended had come at last. To destroy the Priors, Adria, the Ori fleet, any lurking Ori, who the fuck knows or cares now? Because they'd destroyed Earth, too. Nine tenths of Earth's population had simply dropped dead in their tracks when the Ascended arrived; he knows that whoever was left alive at Peterson tried to launch missiles—god knows at who—and couldn't. He knows because the hardened phone lines still worked. Everything electronic on the planet— _anywhere_ on the planet—doesn't work any more. They could take Cam's car—it's old enough that it will start—but all the gas pumps are electronic and the roads are probably impassable now.

Sam is dead. Teal'c is dead. Jack may be dead—the phone lines were jammed for three days and quit before Daniel could get through to Washington. Daniel doesn't know why some lived and some died. What the mechanism of choice is. Mitchell is deeply religious. Daniel is formerly Ascended. There doesn't seem to be any logic.

Of the seven hundred and fifty people in the SGC that morning at 1017 hours, thirty were alive at 1018 hours. Mitchell was the highest ranking officer left alive. He may be the highest ranking officer left on Earth. Supreme Military Commander of exactly nothing.

They pieced together what was going on from phone messages, from what the fifteen people alive up in NORAD could tell them. Cam asked them all what they wanted to do. He let everybody vote on it. Everyone else had family in the area. Cam let them leave. He and Daniel stayed—trying to contact anyone (but there was no one), shifting corpses into storerooms as they came to them (too many for the morgue), trying to decide on a _plan._ The Gate won't work without power, and where would they go, really? What do you do after the end of the world?

Cam wants to go home. Daniel wants to go to Washington. Daniel guesses North Carolina is on the way as much as anything is. They're safer traveling together.

"It can't end _that_ way," Mitchell says again (when they reach the highway, when they see the cars, the bodies, the _end.)_

"It can," Daniel tells him wearily. "It can."

###


	3. PROMPT: "But I was sure that it wouldn't do that!" (gen; accidental genderflip)

Daniel has been a caveman, a robot (wasn't him precisely but technically he can claim it), dead (too many times), Ascended (twice), bodyswapped (three times), and a lot of other things, including Anubis' host for an exciting forty minutes he doesn't remember. He can never remember having been quite this angry ever before in his life.

 _"Vala!"_ he shouts at the top of his lungs. She's standing right there and she isn't deaf (except when she wants to be) but sometimes yelling helps. Jack said so once, in an unguarded moment. It explained a lot about their early years.

"What?" Vala says defensively. She's only defensive when she's _absolutely certain_ she's in the wrong. Daniel knows this perfectly well.

"You. Touched. Something," Daniel says.

"But I was sure that it wouldn't do that," Vala says, as if that matters. "I certainly didn't think it would harm someone."

"You don't call this _harm_?" Mitchell yelps. Mitchell's voice cracks as it tries to find its appropriate register.

"You aren't dead," Daniel points out, irrationally motivated to come to Vala's defense. His anger is fading. The situation is too, well, ... funny.

"Yeah, thanks a lot, Jackson, I'd definitely call this a 'fate worse than,'" Mitchell snipes.

"Thanks so much," Sam says. "Nothing more than we've been putting up with for years." Sam smiles. "Or do I get to say 'you', now—Cammie?"

"Hey!" Mitchell protests, and this time ... _her_ ... voice hits the appropriate register. A rather nice contralto, Daniel notes.

"Can the device be used to return the three of us to our appropriate genders, Daniel Jackson?" Teal'c asks (no, Daniel corrects himself mentally, it really ought to be _Te'auc_ now...)

Daniel looks down at the Intriguing Alien Device. At least it was intriguing about five minutes ago—brightly-colored with a large green jewel on top, bearing a vague resemblance to a DHD, which made Daniel think it might be of Ancient origin. They saw it the moment they came through the Gate. Vala had dashed over to it, Daniel had dashed after her, and he's just as glad (selfishly) that the two of them were inside whatever neutral zone this thing has, because he can't really see spending the rest of his life as 'Danielle.' Which is what it looks like it's going to be for the other three. He shakes his head in answer to Teal'c's question. Vala prods the device helpfully. The green jewel on the top—now dull and blackened—falls off and shatters as it hits the ground.

Sam—now _Samuel_ —folds _his_ arms over his chest and glares at the two of them, and Daniel hears the sound of popping seams. Cam's a pretty big girl—though a really _shapely_ one—and Teal'c is a scarily formidable woman, but the biggest change is in Sam. She looks like she's picked up three inches and probably fifty pounds, and her BDUs aren't happy about it at all.

"I am _not_ spending the rest of my life as a goddamned girl!" Cam howls. "I _like_ girls! I do not want to _be_ one!"

"Indeed," Teal'c says darkly.

"Oh, cry me a river, boys," Sam snarls. "Do you think I want to spend the rest of my life dealing with testosterone rage? From what I hear, it's like permanent PMS."

Cam suddenly looks horrified, and Sam laughs heartlessly. Daniel sighs. "Come on, guys. Let's pack up all of this that we can and go home. Then we can start seeing about getting you ... fixed."

"Oh, I don't know," Vala says archly (the best defense is a good offense.) "I think I like them all better this way—don't you, Daniel? And ... Sam. I think you and I are going to have _so much_ to talk about."

###


	4. PROMPT: Jack/Daniel. Six hidden answers. (slash)

The first is on Abydos, a question asked and answered, and Jack didn't even realize until years later (knowing Daniel, loving Daniel) that the question had been asked, and answered, and Daniel had charged right ahead on the basis of information received. _'Do you want to die?'_ Daniel had asked him (secretly, before putting the matter into words), and he'd answered: _'No.'_

The second is the answer he doesn't give after P3R-233, when Daniel asks him (asks all of them) why they don't believe him. And Jack answers it for months afterward, but he never tells any of the answers to Daniel. _Because you're special. You're brilliant. You see the world in a way that nobody else does. I'd trust you with my life. But I don't ... quite ..._ trust _you._ He's already lost Daniel half-a-dozen ways in the last year. He doesn't want to lose him this way too.

The third answer is after Abydos—Daniel's gone back, Jack went to Washington. And Daniel comes home knowing that his wife's possessed body has been raped and impregnated by a _Goa'uld_ ; he's spoken to his wife, delivered the child, and then lost them both. And Jack has come home from Washington wondering if he can trust General Hammond, or if General Hammond gives orders to murder innocent civilians _(like Daniel is, like Daniel won't be much longer.)_ And Jack smiles dutifully as General Hammond pins his medal on, and knows he can't go and comfort Daniel _(as Daniel needs)_ because he can't give Daniel the answer Daniel needs to hear from him: _'You did what you had to.'_

The fourth answer is to the same question as the second one was. They're just back from a planet full of dead bush league _Goa'uld_ and Daniel's going crazy. Only he says he isn't. _'Why don't you believe me, Jack? Why won't you trust me?'_ And he lets MacKenzie lock Daniel up in a padded cell, but at least he hasn't answered. _'Because I can't, Daniel. Because I don't dare.'_ He's known he isn't sound on the subject of Daniel for a while. He should have recommended that Dr. Jackson be assigned to another SG Team a long time ago. And Daniel recovers, and forgives him, and he knows he never will.

The fifth answer is after Kelowna. Daniel doesn't ask the question; Jack does. And Daniel doesn't answer it, because Daniel's gone, gone forever, not even dead, so there's no grave to visit (but Jack gave up visiting graves a long time ago, in another lifetime). The question is the Eternal Question (Jack's asked it before, in other times and places.) He asks it now, in the depths of black and lonely nights, in the bottom of a bottle in an empty house: _'Why did you leave me?'_ And the silence answers: _'You never said anything...'_

The sixth answer is years later. He's been retired for six months, settled in to that cabin up at Silver Creek. Summer in Northern Minnesota is simmering but brief, and he's taking coffee on his front porch in the cool of the morning (screw his doctors; they're in Washington and he's never going to see them again) when he hears the sound of an engine heading up the dirt road. And he gets to his feet and stands at the end of the porch, and watches as Daniel's Jeep pulls to a stop, and watches as Daniel begins unloading bags and boxes and suitcases, and realizes (the last time is like the first) that the most important question has been asked, and answered, and Daniel has charged right ahead on the basis of information received.

###


	5. PROMPT: Vala to Mitchell: "Looking at it that way, it's a kind of insult..." (gen)

"Looking at it that way, it's a kind of insult. Should I kill him or watch Daniel twitch after asking him to do it?"

"Whoa-whoa-whoa- _whoa!_ " Cam answers. "Who said anything about killing?"

"I just did," Vala answers helpfully.

"Yeah," Cam says. "I got that. Did anybody _else_ say anything about killing? I mean besides you?"

"I don't think so," Vala says thoughtfully. "But really, Cameron, don't you think this whole situation is _incredibly unfair?"_

"Oh, well, hard to say," Cam says. "Which part of it strikes you as unfair? The part where we come through the Gate on a peaceful reconnaissance mission trying to find out if these people have ties to the Lucian Alliance and get ambushed before we get down the steps? The part where in a couple of hours I'm supposed to walk back to the Gate _naked_ and dial home and see if General Landry is willing to come up with a totally-extortionate ransom payment in refined weapons grade _naquadaah_ so we can all go home? The part where if he drags his feet at all—or even if he doesn't—they're going to sell us to the Lucians instead? The part where we're being _held prisoner_ in a _dungeon_ until then? Or the part where the chief bad guy's decided he doesn't want to ransom Sam back at all?" He almost wishes there weren't a window between their two cells—who ever heard of prison cells with a pass-through window?—because Vala hasn't shut up since they got in here. He wonders where Jackson is. He hasn't seen either him or Sam since they were tossed in the hoosegow.

Vala sticks the end of her pigtail in her mouth and chews on it. "Mmmm ... the last one. It's so unfair! I mean, honestly, Cameron! Just because she's _blonde_ —and just between us, I'm pretty sure that's _not all Samantha_ if you catch my drift—how could that nasty spotty little man _possibly_ think that she's more desirable than I am? I'll have you know that _lots_ of men want me!"

"Vala," Cam says, with what he considers to be admirable patience. "They want you in order to lock you up, sell you, or _shoot_ you."

"Still!" Vala says brightly. "So I really think I've been insulted here. And as the wronged party, I demand justice. I'm afraid that nasty spotty little man has to die."

Cam just sighs.

###


	6. PROMPT: Vala helps to cross-train SG-1 in Things They Don't Teach At The Academy. (gen)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> (Full Prompt Text) Vala helps to cross-train SG-1 in Things They Don't Teach At The Academy. And the rumors about her begin to spread among the Teams...

The one thing Cam learned once he got past being overawed by being here and being with _Them_ and thinking about who they are is that Jackson is about as reasonable as a cat you're trying to bathe. That means that Cam's rules for Surviving SG-1 (a long list and getting longer by the day) involve pretty much ignoring Jackson's opinions if it doesn't involve alien ruins or alien aliens, in which case Jackson's opinions are money in the bank. Except, of course, with one particular alien, about whom Jackson isn't reasonable and never will be. (Except, of course, when he's backing the General into a corner to get her put onto SG-1, and if the man were just _consistent_ for two minutes together Cam wouldn't be thinking wistfully about developing a drinking problem like his _other_ Uncle Al.) What it all comes down to is when Vala says she thinks she can help them and she and Jackson get into a hair pulling match over it in the Commissary, Cam makes it his business to hunt her out afterward and get the lowdown.

"Well, darling," Vala says, flirting herself at him (which Cam ignores, having read the mission report from their first contact with her on board _Prometheus_ , and he keeps in mind the fact that she did more than a little something about taking out a _Goa'uld_ mothership on her way to hijacking _Prometheus_ too) "it has come to my attention—I _do_ notice things, you know—that you lovely Earth people could use a little _help_ in the area of, oh, strategy and tactics. Because not everyone you meet is going to be as nice as you are, you know. And by 'nice,' I mean 'stupid.'"

"You want to teach us things?" Cam says. He's pretty much guessing here.

 _"Yes!"_ Vala crows in triumph. "Because if you don't climb onto a game, you're going to be bagels."

Cam thinks about that for a moment. "Um... if we don't get on our game, we're gonna be toast?"

"If you like," Vala says magnanimously. "You really do need my help, you know."

"Probably," Cam allows. "What did you have in mind?"

It takes a combination of threats and blackmail to get Jackson to go along with it. Teal'c was apparently just waiting for them to wake up and smell the coffee, and Cam's known Sam for years, and 'thrillseeker' doesn't even _begin_ to describe her, but it takes Sam saying she'll _call Washington_ and _make sure_ that Vala has a chance to have a long intimate chat with General O'Neill that makes Jackson cave.

There are things that Air Force personnel _can't_ do (Rules of Engagement), but that doesn't mean they can't learn _how_ to do them, because frankly, if it's a choice between seeing Earth go up in flames or go Ori and bending his service oath just a little, Cam thinks he can probably live with the right sort of bending. What he really doesn't expect is the rumors that start after they spend the day in the Base Pharmacy with Vala (even if it's with Dr. Lam hovering behind them) checking out all the drugs, learning about their offworld cousins, and finding out about all the neat (and not-so-neat) things you could do with them. Or when they sign out a couple of the _intar_ zats from the Armory and spend three days trying to hide them undetectably on their bodies (round robin elimination, loser buys dinner for the team). Or when Sam and Vala go shopping (Cam bankrolls it, since he can ask for the money back out of the SGC Weird Expenses Slush Fund) and then come back and Vala spends the evening dressing all of them up as fun lowlifes she has known and telling them all about them. Jackson ought to be more interested than he is: he just looks pissed. By that time, Cam can take his pick of rumors: Vala's dealing drugs, Vala sneaks out at night to knock over convenience stores, Vala's turned out Sam and Jackson and is running a string of hookers in downtown Colorado Springs. Cam's actually a little indignant that he and Teal'c don't get more face time with the rumor mill, and he's just as glad that Sam thinks it's funny and Jackson doesn't seem to be genetically capable of plugging in to gossip (Cam guesses it's like the ATA gene, only backwards, sort of). He should have known his luck would run out.

He gets his wakeup call when Jackson comes dashing into his office, hair every which way, glasses askew. "Where is she?" he demands wildly. _"I'm going to kill her."_

"Good morning, Sunshine," Cam drawls. He's learned from experience that the more he can slow Jackson down, the likelier it is he can get _sense_ out of the man.

 _"Vala!"_ Jackson snarls. "She— That— She— Do you know what Menendez—one of my _people_ —she— _she thought I was for sale!_ Oh my god, I know who to blame for this—"

"Yeah," Cam says with a sigh. "The woman who's doing her level best to keep all of us alive by teaching us everything she knows about how she stayed that way. So why don't you go back downstairs and tell Dr. Menendez that she has to write on the blackboard one hundred times 'I Will Not Try To Rent My Department Head For Sex', because I'm pretty sure that this one isn't Vala's fault."

Jackson snarls something unintelligible and stalks out. Cam drops his head into his hands. He's not sure what's going to do him in first: the Ori, the SGC, or his own team.

###


	7. PROMPT: Ooh! Jack/Daniel. One of them gets a tattoo. (slash)

"All good things must end," Jack says, and: "Fuck you," Daniel responds.

"Yeah, getting there," is Jack's reply, but Daniel is sitting up, grabbing for his clothes, already out the door in his mind.

Jack grabs his arm. "Daniel! What the hell did you think I meant?" Because Daniel is the very definition of 'unreasonable,' but he usually needs a _pretext_.

"I don't do goodbye fucks," Daniel says tightly, his back to Jack, his briefs in his hands.

"Yeah, well, I'm not fond of them myself," Jack says, not letting go. "Washington isn't another planet. I'm giving up the SGC." He doesn't say he isn't giving up Daniel, because right now he isn't sure he's getting a choice about that. The unsaid words hang heavy in the air of his bedroom, though, and he knows Daniel hears them, because Daniel isn't moving.

"Yeah, okay, fine," Daniel says. He wads up his briefs and tosses them across the room before rolling back into the bed. They wedge somewhere in the depths of Jack's long unused kayak. Jack only hopes one of them will remember where they are later.

"Thought you might like having me out from underfoot," Jack says. "You could play the field." Daniel already plays the field. Jack knows it, and Daniel knows he knows it. It isn't something they talk about. "I could sell you my house, too. Get you out of that crappy rathole apartment you're in."

"Or I could go to Atlantis," Daniel says. He's still pissed, and Jack isn't sure why; Daniel knows why he has to take this post. The IOC will eat them alive otherwise. "Keep the damned house. Or sell it. Somebody'd just sell out from under me the next time I died, anyway."

"Have it your way," Jack says mildly, "you heard a seal bark." And Daniel stares at him until he places the reference (it takes a few seconds) then he laughs, and Jack knows it's safe to kiss him, and the rest of the weekend is ... more than fine.

He goes to Washington, and Daniel doesn't go to Atlantis, and a lot of other things happen, and Jack tries not to wonder if Daniel and Mitchell are fucking but Daniel won't say and Mitchell can't say and anyway Jack has no idea whether Mitchell's even on the down low and a while after that the new improved SG-1 has a long weekend and Daniel comes to Washington alone.

"This is new," Jack says, staring at Daniel's ass. It's a nice ass—his favorite ass, in fact—but that's not why he's staring. "You guys get captured by some kinky aliens?"

"No," Daniel says, rising up on his elbows and looking back over his shoulder as if he wants to see what's back there besides Jack (and Jack is old news), but the tattoo looks well healed. "I had it done." He sounds amused.

"You had somebody put a tattoo on your _ass_?" Jack asks in disbelief. It's a nice tattoo—circular, pretty colors, about five inches around—but _for crying out loud._

"Insurance."

"Whose?"

"Yours. Oh, come on, Jack, don't tell me that after all these years you can't read it?"

Jack traces the curves and lines of the colored marks on Daniel's ass with a forefinger. He recognizes the symbols—though they've been dressed up. They're _Goa'uld._ "Aw, c'mon, Daniel. You know me. If it doesn't say 'Free Beer' or something..."

"Idiot," Daniel says fondly. "Fine. The red symbols say—more or less—'property.' The blue and green ones were harder to work out, since, as you know, _Goa'uld_ doesn't, strictly speaking, _have_ an alphabet, although some dialects have adopted the alphabetic form with—may I say—limited utility, so—"

"Daniel? The short version? I have plans here."

"If you insist. The blue and green symbols are your name, Jack."

###


	8. PROMPT: Cam: "until the last resilient hope / is frozen deep inside my bones..." (gen)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> (Full Prompt) Anything with Cam, and/or any part of this: "until the last resilient hope / is frozen deep inside my bones / and this broken fate has claimed me / and my memories for its own"
> 
> Prompt by Kazbaby.

_Don't sleep._

He knows he shouldn't. He knows he mustn't. He hears the sound of dripping, and wonders what the hell can be _dripping._ It's fifty below without wind chill.

He's cold.

He tries to move his hands, just because he _can_ move his hands. Harder now. It's funny—things move that shouldn't, things that should move don't—but he stopped laughing a while ago. He wonders how long he's been out here on the ice. He thinks Banks is dead. Banks would be alive—they'd _both_ be alive—if their ejection suite had worked. 

_"If thy hand offend thee, cut it off: It is better for thee to enter into life maimed, than having two hands to go into hell, into the fire that shall never be quenched: Where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched."_ He doesn't want to go to hell. He's done his best to live a good Christian life—salvation by Grace, not by works, but works are important—good works, and he knows they all did good works here today. They helped SG-1 save the world. He's pretty sure, because the world's still here, and it was within amesace of being blown to hell when his kids showed up. And now this broken fate has claimed him and his memories for its own.

He's drifting now, thinking of the fires of hell and how he met Daniel Jackson once and how one of his Snakeskinners cussed a blue streak in front of him and Dr. Jackson gave Redmond a pocket lecture about some hells are cold and some are hot and some are just black and Redmond's dead now and Cam doesn't know if Dr. Jackson's dead or not and now he's down here on the ice and he doesn't know if anyone's coming for him or not...

 _Don't sleep. Don't sleep, Cam._ It's Sam's voice in his head, and he promises her he won't. Not until the last resilient hope is frozen deep inside his bones.

###


	9. PROMPT: any non-native to earth character and their reaction to their first winter on earth? (gen)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Full Prompt: i don't know the show well enough to pick names, but how about any non-native to earth character and their reaction to (winter holiday of the writer's choice) their first winter on earth?

He came to the First World near the beginning of the year. He spoke the language of his new allies, but its subtleties eluded him; for some time he thought the season was called _Leap_ until Daniel Jackson disambiguated him and explained that although it was called Spring, it had nothing to do with springing. _Tau'ri_ language is ambiguous and complex. There are six distinct seasons marked on Chulak, a place he does not think, when he leaves it, he will ever see again, though he is wrong.

But it is Earth that is his home now, and the _Tau'ri_ who are the people he must live among, taking their ways for his own, and those ways are infinitely surprising. O'Neill does not understand how he, once First Prime to the False God Apophis, can be shocked by anything the Tau'ri do, but the worlds that the _Goa'uld_ rule, though they languish in cruelty and slavery, do so quietly. The False Gods fight wars. The people do not. Nor is there so much ... disorder.

One of the strangest things in his new life are the festivals of the _Tau'ri._ They seem to make no sense and possess little meaning—though Daniel Jackson does his best to explain them—and Teal'c is shocked to discover that their celebration is not compulsory. O'Neill tries to explain to him that nothing is compulsory in _America,_ but O'Neill has also told him that many things are compulsory in the _Air Force_ so Teal'c is even more confused.

There was snow on the ground when he arrived. There is snow again when the greatest of the _Tau'ri_ festivals arrives. At first Teal'c thinks it has many names—Chanukah and Kwanzaa and Christmas and Duwali and Solstice—but Daniel Jackson tells him that these are many festivals of many religions that all occur near the same time of year. It does not make Teal'c any less confused. The idea of many religions, or religions that you choose, is one he still struggles to accept. And Captain Carter has told him that it is really just "the Holidays" and it is "sort of a secular religion." He looks up all the words in the dictionary Daniel Jackson has given him. It does not help. Nor does it help when he finds that Captain Carter celebrates both Chanukah and Christmas, as this is the tradition in her family, that that Daniel Jackson has never celebrated any holiday at all, and that O'Neill "no longer celebrates Christmas." He feels he will be safest following O'Neill's example—if that is an acceptable custom—but when Daniel Jackson tells O'Neill that there is no winter holiday of any sort on Chulak—nothing to correspond to their Feast of Many Names—O'Neill announces that _this_ year, SG-1 will be celebrating Christmas.

The ceremonies are elaborate and strange. A dead tree must be brought into Captain Carter's dwelling place and covered with ritual objects. Many traditional foodstuffs must be prepared. Apparently there are burnt offerings involved, though both O'Neill and Daniel Jackson say that this is _not_ traditional, and Captain Carter reminds them both that she holds a Master Marksman's badge and an Intermediate rating in Unarmed Combat, and either of them is welcome to help out in the kitchen. Neither of them volunteers, so Teal'c does. He still has no answer to his question, so he asks Captain Carter.

"Captain Carter, I wish to know. What is the purpose of this observance?" he asks.

She frowns, puzzled. "Christmas? Well, Teal'c, Christmas is ... um, Christmas..."

O'Neill has returned to the kitchen in search of more beer. "Aw, c'mon, Carter. That one's easy. Christmas, Teal'c. Christmas is about family."

###


	10. PROMPT: Vala's crampy from her period and wants tea and sympathy (gen)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Full Prompt: Ooo! Vala's crampy from her period and wants tea and sympathy from Daniel, but he saw her coming and hid, so she's settling for tormenting Mitchell.
> 
> Prompt by Grammarwoman

Cam hadn't had a clue why Jackson had taken off like a bat out of hell saying something about needing to _mumble-mumble-mumble_ until Vala showed up in one of her most annoying moods. 

"I'm tired, I'm bored, nobody's any fun here, I can't find Daniel..." Vala sat down on the edge of his desk, coincidentally shoving his in box and a pile of files to the floor. Usually she'd offer to pick them up, but not today. "You're in charge, darling—I think it's your job to entertain me. You'd better," she added threateningly.

It took Cam about five seconds to figure out what was up, since Sam had kicked him out of her lab earlier that day, threatening instant death to him or anyone who didn't come bearing chocolate, and Cam had grown up in a house full of women. He not only knew what a cranky woman demanding chocolate meant, he knew that women who spent a lot of time together tended to get their visit from Aunt Ruby together. If Sam was having her girl time, chances were that Vala was too. And she didn't look in the least happy about it.

"Yeah," he said, getting to his feet, "well, it's my job to protect Earth. And right now, I think the safety of Earth depends on you going to your quarters and staying there."

"I won't!" Vala said.

"Now, I wasn't done yet," Cam said. _"If_ you go to your quarters—and stay there— _I_ will go and pick up a few things and come and join you."

"You're lying," Vala said doubtfully.

"I would not lie to you, Vala," Cam said firmly. "Come on."

He walked her back to her quarters, and walked her inside, and walked her into the middle of the room. "Stay here. I will be back soon."

Vala glared at him murderously and turned her back. "You don't have to treat me like a _child,_ Colonel Mitchell," she said haughtily.

It took him longer than he hoped to pick up what he needed and get back, and when he let himself back into Vala's quarters she was curled up on top of the bed, looking as miserable as a wet cat. He set the box down on the dresser.

"I hate you," Vala muttered.

"Yeah," Cam said. "You probably hate everybody this time of the month." He started opening her dresser drawers. "What kind of woman doesn't own a flannel nightgown?"

"What?" Vala asked, sitting up.

"Flannel nightgown, hot water bottle, some of my Gran'ma's special tea, you'll feel a lot better." He settles for a sweatshirt that probably started life as one of Jackson's. "Here. Go put this on." He tosses the sweatshirt onto the bed.

"I thought you were going to seduce me," Vala says dolefully. 

Cam shakes his head. "Bathroom. Now."

By the time Vala comes back he's gotten the bed turned down, the pillows fluffed, the electric kettle plugged in, and the box unpacked. "Are those sex toys?" Vala asks.

"They are not," Cam says firmly. "Into the bed with you."

He covers her up—she looks doubtful—and goes into the bathroom to fill the kettle and the hot water bottle. The water down here runs hotter than the hinges of Hell, and that's good. He comes back, plugs in the kettle, lifts up the edge of the covers. "Hey!" Vala says.

"You put this on your stomach," Cam says. "The heat will help."

Vala does as she's told (she always likes being fussed over; Cam's found that out). He already knows she hasn't been to the Infirmary, because Vala hates doctors, so he gets a glass of water, and bribes her into taking two ibuprofen by promising her a chocolate chip cookie. While she nibbles on the cookie, he takes her hair down out of its pigtails and brushes it out. She looks younger with it lying soft and loose, and she probably feels better without having it up (not that she'd ever say so). By the time she's finished the cookie, the kettle's boiling, and he brews tea.

"You're going to poison me," Vala says, just to be difficult.

"Hell, Vala, if I wanted to kill you I'd beat you to death," Cam says, grinning in spite of himself. "It'd be a lot more satisfying." He's pretty sure she won't kill him. He has more cookies. When the tea's brewed he adds a generous squirt of honey, stirs it up with a silver spoon (has to be silver, Gran'ma said), and then adds a good shot of whiskey from his hip flask. Getting that in past the SFs was the only part that made him nervous; technically he's still on duty. But he guesses this is part of his job.

"Now drink this all down like a good girl and I'll rub your feet," Cam says, handing her the mug.

"Giving me the rest of that liquor would be more useful," Vala says. She sips. "This is awful."

"No it isn't," Cam says. He's tasted it himself; it isn't wonderful, but it's not that bad. "And the rest of the liquor is for your next cup of tea." He goes back to the dresser and picks up the tube of peppermint foot cream, and settles himself on the bed in such a way that he can retrieve one of Vala's feet from beneath the covers.

"Is this some silly _Tau'ri_ attempt at seduction?" Vala says. Her eyes are half closed now, though, and most of the tea is gone, and she doesn't look like she wants to kill everybody in sight.

"Naw," Cam says. "I figure if I was trying to seduce you, one or the other of us'd be a little clearer on it, and there'd be a lot more naked. Just being helpful here. You know, Momma always said I was gonna make some girl a wonderful wife someday." He finishes one foot and starts in on the other, all the while talking pretty much nonsense to her, the kind of silliness he'd talk at one of his eight-year-old girl cousins, or the baby in the crib too young to understand. When he's done both her feet, he fixes her a second mug of tea, and that finishes off the whiskey in his little flask.

"But why are you doing all this for me?" Vala asks when he brings back the mug.

He smiles at her as he sits down. "Way I see it, Vala, friends take care of each other."

"Cameron, I am _not_ your friend," she answers Her tone is halfway between indignant and wistful.

"I guess not.," Cam says, regarding her. "But you could be."

###


	11. PROMPT: SAM-MERRY; My Mathematical Mind (AU, Girl!Rodney, gen)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sam/Rodney (OR SAM/MERRY PLEASE WITH BONUS SAM IN LEATHER JACKET!): My Mathematical Mind
> 
> Prompt by Kuwdora.

"What the hell are you doing in my locker?" Sam demanded.

"Looking for clothes," Merry answered. "Civilian clothes. Clothing a reasonably normal person would wear—which I admit, Samantha, leaves you out—because I'm damned if I'm going to tour Colorado Springs looking like a moldy pickle, and thank you so much for that because I'm _sure_ you're the one who designed the uniforms for the expedition and didn't you bother to explain to anyone that I am _allergic_ to synthetic fibers? Haven't you people ever heard of going green? Oh, of course not! Americans!"

"They were designed by a committee—of which Canada is a member, might I remind you?" Sam says. She doesn't know why she bothers to argue with Merry McKay. Or even talk to the woman. It never ends well. Dani says they're too much alike. Dani doesn't know what the hell she's talking about. Sam has _table manners_ , just to begin with. And she doesn't go around _burgling other people's lockers._

"Oh, and we all know that the US _never_ leans on the IOA to get its own way just because it has, oh let me see, control of the Stargate, control of the dialing computer, connections with a bunch of powerful alien races ... ooooh.... nice." Merry grabs Sam's leather motorcycle jacket out of the locker. Sam snatches it out of her hands.

"That's mine!"

"Aaand... more American imperialism at its finest."

Sam pulls the jacket on over her BDUs. It looks a little odd that way, but she can be sure of keeping it at least. She slams the locker door shut and smiles at Merry, bright and hard. "Right. For god's sake, McKay, if you've got a hot date with Colonel Sheppard, why don't you pick on somebody closer to your own size?" Sam knows it's fighting dirty, but it works. She's rewarded with a silent murderous glare from Merry, and then Merry stalks out of the Women's Changing Room. Sam waits a few minutes and then follows.

She takes her jacket with her, though. She's not stupid.

###


End file.
